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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

DRC: UN repairing Bunia airport, other infrastructure

BUNIA, 4 September 2003 (IRIN) - UN troops in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo have started a multimillion-dollar operation to repair and develop air and ground transport links in the district of Ituri, ravaged by five years of war.

The troops, which on Monday took over from the French-led multinational peacekeeping force in Bunia, will bring the town's tiny airport up to international standards. They will also repair the road linking Bunia with Beni, the principle town in neighbouring North Kivu Province.

UN officials in charge of the mission said the projects were vital both to the UN peace-enforcement mission in Ituri and to the resumption of business in Bunia, which has been starved of normal economic activity since the conflict began.

So far, much of this infrastructure development has involved the removal of landmines in the areas to be developed. The chief of operations of UN forces in Bunia, Maj Alani Nizar of Tunisia, said troops had cleared the airport, the road between it and Bunia, as well as the town centre, of landmines. Similar work, expected to last a month, had also started on the road to Beni, Nizar said.

Scheduled commercial flights, most of them cargo, have started using the airport. "In total we are handling 30 to 40 flights a day at present," Nizar said. "We have a British team of about 50 engineers making daily repairs to the two runways we have supporting the mission. We are also building fuel tanks that will soon be able to hold 600,000 litres of petrol."

Nizar said some US $600 million had been allocated to maintain and develop the airport and that it was already capable of receiving and parking four 40-ton aircraft.

"These changes, plus the road to Beni, will benefit everybody if we can use our mandate to keep security in Bunia," Nizar said.

But residents of Bunia remained sceptical about whether normal life would be returned to Bunia soon, on the back of these changes. Residents say sections of the town are still controlled by either rival Lendu or Hema militias.

"The airport is safe but there is still much insecurity in the town," Lolo Bosuo, former owner of an Internet café that was looted by a militia group, said. "You can stay on the main street here but as soon as you wander out by about half a kilometre the militias are there. They are ambushing people and dragging them off to be killed," he said.

But Nizar said that MONUC, as the UN mission in the Congo is known, was in a strong position to deal with any militia activity in or around the town.

"As you know, unlike the former mission, we are now under a Chapter Seven mandate. We have two fully operational MI-25 attack helicopters with orders to survey and to shoot if necessary. This should enable us to keep Bunia and its surroundings safe," he said.

Theme(s): (IRIN) Conflict, (IRIN) Economy

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